The 23,000-square-foot store will sell a broad array of kitchen, bath and bedroom merchandise, including furniture and rugs. A second Lord & Taylor Home will open in several weeks in Shrewsbury, N.J., the report said. Executives of the company and its parent, Canadian retailer Hudson's Bay Trading Co., said the company's experience selling home furnishings in Canada convinced them they can develop a home goods business in the United States.

"We feel we'll be able to offer something a little bit different to the customer and that's why we saw this as an opportunity," Brendan Hoffman, president and CEO of Lord & Taylor, told NorthJersey.com. He said the home stores, like the department stores, will specialize in "affordable upscale."

The stores will carry Dansk, Lenox, Linens 'n Things brand products and the Gluckstein Home brand created by interior designer Brian Gluckstein for the 69-store Home Outfitters chain operated in Canada by Hudson's.

Fritz Winans, president and COO of specialty retail and global sourcing for Hudson's is overseeing the opening of the first Lord & Taylor Home stores. Winans told NorthJersey.com that the new stores will compete with retailers such as Crate & Barrel, West Elm, Bloomingdales, and Bed Bath and Beyond.

Lord & Taylor started a home-textiles department in its Fifth Avenue flagship store last year and installed similar shops in some suburban stores, and decided to take home furnishings a step further with two free-standing home stores, Hoffman told the site. If successful, the goal is "to have hundreds of these throughout our regions, if not expanding beyond our regions," he said.

All the furniture at Lord & Taylor is the Lauren by Ralph Lauren brand from Schnadig International, according to Furniture/Today. "It is our 'showcase gallery' for the Lauren/Ralph Lauren brand in New York and has become our 'window on the world' in that we send many international targeted accounts to L&T while passing through or conducting business in New York," said Jeff Young, CEO of Schnadig.